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Evaluation
Team Titan Think Tank Issue 20- "Evaluation." (Recap.) At the end of the previous issue, all of the Think Tank were leaving the Rumble Room, with the exception of Games Master, who wasn't shown to the reader after falling to the ground in front of the two battling entities of pure energy. The issue opens with him, as Master of Arms, otherwise last to leave, turns and see Games Master on his knees, unmoving, except for the odd facial twitch, as white energy pours from the man's eyes. Yu attempts to read Games Master's physical responses in order to find out whats wrong, and why energy is emitting from him, and he gains the sense of both confusion and also vividly reliving memories. The comic flashbacks to show what Games Master sees. The reader is shown a collection of images involving a man called the Red Warlord, a huge (not just by Chinese standards), bald, armed and armoured man with a bloodied hand print across his face. The Warlord appears to be from ancient China, and is a particularly ruthless (and hated) mercenary warrior, who is shown to slaughter injured soldiers as they lie on the ground and plead for mercy. The Warlord is then shown to be woken from sleep, thinking he is under attack, as he stabs his lover, unintentionally, and weeps. Further flashbacks show how despite his inhuman nature, he loved this woman. He is shown carrying the woman to a Buddhist temple, where he lays her in front of a buddha statue made of red brick, and begs for forgiveness. A ninja approaches from behind and slits the Warlord's neck. The Warlord dies cradling his love, as he bloodied hand (after clutching onto his bleeding throat) drags down the statue, and his eyes glow gree, looking at the statue's face, as he dies. The Red Buddha statue is shown taking a step forward. Master of Arms calls the team back in, as he is concerned for Games Master's current state of being. Reb doesn't return to the room initially as he is so upset, and mumbles to the Battling Briton that 'you really owe me that pizza', so Battling Briton takes his son to the kitchen to try and cheer him up. Waterstone also takes Sonne with her to go and fix the power's bases solar power storage unit, which she has shot several bullets into to destroy it. Sonne looks to her and asks 'what ever happened to using the off button?' Waterstone explains that Red Buddha specified that he needed to die in order to eject Red Base and possess a new body (in this case, joint possesion of the Red Buddha) so she assumed that just turning off the base's power wouldn't do. Sonne flies around the generator, tapping each part with a bullet hole, as the bullets fall out and the holes close up. After fixing the generator, Sonne returns to the others. He flies down the corridors of Prometheus Base and flies past the kitchen as Battling Briton is trying to make a 'pizza tower'... which collapses, spraying the both of them. Tops then enters the kitchen to get the aforementioned scones, as he returns with the two just behind Sonne to the Rumble Room as they discuss Games Master. Sonne tells Games Master that he has absorbed too much energy, as the white energy continues to pour out of his eyes, and suggests that he burn some of it off, before it burns him out. Games Master nods, and creates an energy construct briefly, using the energy, which turns red as he forms it. When he dismisses the construct, the energy has ceased pouring from his eyes, but they are now pure white. When Games Master speaks, at times it sounds like the old Games Master, and at other times, such as when he first speaks when Yu speaks to him, he sounds much more like Red Buddha. At other times, when certain beings and situations relating to superheroes and villains are mentioned, he sounds more robotic, and spews out relevant information. The team work out that, as a result of Games Master's energy absorbing powers, as Gunn explains, that rather than die, the Red Buddha's consciousness, which was hard light when working through the Rumble Room, has been absorbed into Games Master's bodies when it dispersed, along with the collected knowledge ,inputted for simulations, of the Rumble Room. Since the team already knows Games Master is an android and that Sonne knew that he absorbed energy to create constructs, they work out that he must be a CABER robot, with his organic mode programmed to make him look different. He is also now not dissimilar to Counterstrike, the result of the previous Rumble Room becoming self-aware. After realising where Red's conscienceness has gone, Yu and Sonne both become worried about what has happened to Atilla's, and that Games Master may have absorbed him as well, but Games Master says that he has no such memories to indicate that, though he does have Red's memories of Atilla. The team go to Director Waterstone for a debrief. She explains that Red's belief was that when he became Red Base, Atilla's conscienceness became aware through the Rumble Room's files, where it hid itself. The original Rumble Room became self-aware, so Waterstone had several super-scientists repair it and confirm it would not before it was replicated and copies of the Room were given to each of the GSPD's Team Titan squads, however, though the Room could not go self-aware, Atilla manipulated that potential to possess it, and each Rumble Room gained a 'copy' of Atilla. Whilst the Think Tank were training, ten other teams were training at the time, and attacked by the copies, though the disappearance of the true Atilla seems to have had a chain reaction effect and dispelled the others. When the team raise the issue of where Atilla's mind is (Games Master seems cagey about letting anyone look inside his own to confirm or deny the presence) Waterstone explains that she has consulted files regarding the original Rumble Room, and when the conscienceness departed and created Counterstrike. Counterstrike was made from the corpse of a clone of the Vor hero, Metamorph, as the metamoprhic properties allowed it to shape the body, so a similar body may be where the conscienceness has retreated to. Cain thinks, and recalls that the only Vor corpse there could possibly be would be that of the Vor living planetoid, Terraform, that went insane due to its wish to destroy the Kraan, and was dissolved apart by nanites. He theorises that there could be chunks of it orbiting the Earth even now, and Sonne says that if there are, he can link up to satellites to find them and have them destroyed. Waterstone congratulates the team on succeeding and managing not to lose anyone, though she says that the day was not without loss, and that across the GSPD teams attacked, there have been a dozen casualties. She dismisses the teams. Yu waits at the door and asked how Team Titan China have fared, and is relieved to find that they escaped unscathed. As he leaves, Waterstone grimly places down the folders of eight different Team Titan squads across the table. End of issue.